Greendogo wrote:
Hey, does anyone else think we should run an IRC channel? Most of the Elderscrolls related IRC channels are on Chatspike, like Tamriel Rebuilt, DaggerXL, the basic Morrowind channel and Elderscrolls generic channel, as well as a lot of other multi-person mods besides TR.

There's a link to an in browser IRC client that sends you to the IRC channel I'm proposing.

The pure IRC address is irc.chatspike.net and then the channel is #openmw

I propose that someone who actually knows how to run an IRC do so, so I don't have to embarrass myself

raevol wrote:
I love IRC and would totally be down for this. Unfortunately, 2 things:

1. I don't have a lot of time to sit on IRC anymore, so I won't be around much.
2. We tried this before and no one showed up. Maybe we've got more IRC friendly people now...

Greendogo wrote:
Well, it's there if anyone wants it
we could put a link to the widget on the wiki, so that you don't have to deal with an IRC client if you don't want to. Anyone who has a client of their own should know how to deal with the address anyway.

Was the last IRC channel on Chatspike?

raevol wrote:
No, I honestly don't remember where it was. :/

sir_herrbatka wrote:
freenode maybe? :-/

Greendogo wrote:
Regardless of where the old one was, it's toast now, so I recommend putting the new one on Chatspike to remain on the same server all the other Elder Scrolls IRC channels are on for the sake of consistency. Agreed?

Chris wrote:
I'd think Freenode would be more appropriate, since it's a free, open-source project.

Greendogo wrote:
I'm pretty sure Chatspike is free too. It may not be opensource, but it doesn't need to be. I think it's far more important to keep it in the same place as all the other Elder Scrolls channels, people won't have to mess with multiple networks or anything and everyone will be in one place. Choosing Chatspike will be something of a PR move.

raevol wrote:
I agree with having it on Chatspike. Sure this is an open source project, but true "linux" people don't care about games, especially proprietary ones. The Morrowind mod community however, is going to be all over this.

Greendogo wrote:

raevol wrote:I agree with having it on Chatspike. Sure this is an open source project, but true "linux" people don't care about games, especially proprietary ones. The Morrowind mod community however, is going to be all over this.

Hardly. There are quite a few people who play Morrowind (and Oblivion) via Wine. I'm one of them. IIRC, Nico himself uses Linux and one of the reasons the project was even started was because people wanted a Linux-native Morrowind. When id Software released the sources for their games, Linux users were all over it despite still needing to buy the original games (for those that weren't turned into true total-conversions, at least). A bajillion Doom and Quake ports popped up everywhere, a number of them becoming quite advanced. OpenMW would be a god-send.

Freenode isn't just for Linux projects, anyway. It's for free, open-source projects -- Windows, OSX, and other OSs included. Additionally, OpenMW is more about the code than the game content. Being in a place that is for coders (who can generally help) would be more beneficial to the project than being around modders (who can't generally help). Ogre, OpenAL, and other projects that OpenMW relies on have channels on Freenode, which would make it much easier to go and ask for help in.

Greendogo wrote:
So basically this is a debate as to which community would be more helpful, a Linux community or the Morrowind community. To me, it's a no brainer that it's the Morrowind community because I doubt we'd pull in anyone from outside of MW. Also, the majority of people using OpenMW will probably be Windows users anyway, so I think pandering to the MW community by locating the server on Chatspike will benefit us more than being on Freenode.

I think the most important thing would be to have an IRC channel rather than to not have one and it's location probably doesn't matter much because it's mostly going to be for people already working on it or who want to chat about OpenMW and MW related topics. I would really like it to be on Chatspike, but I don't know how to run one. If no one here volunteers to run one (on Chatspike) I'll try and learn to get it running myself. Chris, if you want to run one on Freenode, go ahead, it very well could bring in more coders which would be nice.

Chris wrote:

Greendogo wrote:So basically this is a debate as to which community would be more helpful, a Linux community or the Morrowind community. To me, it's a no brainer that it's the Morrowind community because I doubt we'd pull in anyone from outside of MW. Also, the majority of people using OpenMW will probably be Windows users anyway

I think you're way underestimating things.

First, again, Freenode is not a "Linux community". It's a free, open-source software community. That includes, but is not limited to, Linux. There's plenty of developers there who use Windows, OSX, Android, iOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, and more. People who know about Ogre, Bullet, engine development, and programming in general. Freenode has a much larger pool of developers who could help OpenMW (or who OpenMW developers could look to for help), and IMO turning that away to be "near" the Morrowind community will do more harm than good (it's not even as if we have to stop hanging around the bethsoft forums or other places where Morrowind players hang out, but basing an IRC channel for the development of OpenMW in a large FOSS-developer-oriented IRC server sounds like a no-brainer to me).

I also think you underestimate the draw that OpenMW can pull. The biggest hurdle right now is for OpenMW to prove itself. That it's a viable project and will work. OpenMW is extremely raw right now, but as it improves, more people will take notice and help out. A lot of people would take interest in a working, large-scale RPG engine, and that it can play a very popular game natively on non-WIndows systems will also grab attention.

Whether or not the majority of OpenMW users will be on Windows is a moot point. For one, it's about development, not use. Second, even if the majority of developers are on Windows, that's no reason to ignore what developers for other OSs can bring to the table.

Zini wrote:
Very amusing read. The whole topic might be void, because we most likely don't have enough developers with enough time to populate an IRC channel. But if the community that has formed around OpenMW wants a channel, that is certainly okay.

As for the choice of the network, I think that is not very important (as long as you pick one that is reliable). If we have a channel A on network I and channels B and C on network II, for most practical purposes B isn't any closer to C than to A. And even, if there are people hanging out in C that we might want to interest in OpenMW, using B won't attract them much more efficiently than using A.

@Greendogo: Setting up an IRC channel is trivial. Log onto the network, join an unused channel. There you go, your own IRC channel. If you want it more permanently you need to register your nick with NickServ and the channel with ChanServ. But that is no big deal either.